Book of Abstracts: Albany 2009

Extra-cellular adenosine plays an important role in physiology and initiates most of its effects through activation of its receptors especially during hypoxia and in diseases. Adenosine receptors, members of the super-family of G-protein coupled receptors [GPCR] are of four subtypes [A1,A2a,A2b,A3] and understanding their structure and function gains significance in view of their importance in therapeutics.

In order to understand the structure-functional relationship, we have examined the aminoacid sequences of A2a receptor from a wide range of species including mammals, insects, Zebrafish and also computed the secondary structure, phylogenetic tree, etc. The analysis is suggestive of a strong relationship between mammalian species with subtle difference in Drosophila and Anopheles and interesting similarity between human and Zebrafish. The aminoacids cysteines, histidines in the extracellular loops of A2a are highly conserved suggesting their importance during ligand binding, the details of which will be discussed.

Swapna Ravikumar
R. Malathi*

Dept. of Genetics
Dr. ALMPGIBMS
University of Madras
Chennai-600113
India